Hungary has dropped its veto on the European Union’s first-ever military assistance to Armenia, EU diplomatic sources told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday.
After months of deliberations, the 27-nation bloc moved early this year to approve 10 million euros (about $11 million) worth of “non-lethal” aid from its European Peace Facility, a special fund designed to boost EU partners’ defense capacity.
The money was due to be spent over the next two-and-a-half years on creating a field hospital and auxiliary facilities for a battalion-size Armenian army unit. Its allocation requires the unanimous backing of all EU member states.
It emerged in April that Hungary is blocking the decision and demanding that similar aid also be allocated to Azerbaijan. The sources said Budapest, which took over the EU’s rotating presidency on July 1, subsequently agreed to drop the veto as part of a compromise deal with other European countries. Under that deal, the EU will finance demining activities in Azerbaijan from another source.
Read also
The sources who did not want to be identified added that the EU foreign ministers are now expected to give the final green light to the military aid to Armenia at their next meeting slated for July 22.
In early April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev warned Western powers against “arming Armenia,” including through the European Peace Facility. Aliyev has long maintained a warm rapport with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Unlike other EU member states, Hungary has openly supported Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry reaffirmed that support three days after the outbreak of the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war in Karabakh.
Armenia’s former leadership froze diplomatic relations with the central European nation in 2012 after Orban’s government extradited to Azerbaijan an Azerbaijani army officer who hacked to death a sleeping Armenian colleague in Budapest in 2004. The officer, Ramil Safarov, was pardoned, rewarded and promoted by Aliyev on his return to Azerbaijan.
The current Armenian government decided to restore the diplomatic ties in 2022 even though Hungary never apologized for Safarov’s release and continued to support Azerbaijan. Last September, Budapest reportedly vetoed a statement by the EU member states condemning the Azerbaijani military offensive that displaced Nagorno-Karabakh’s entire population and restored Baku’s control over the region.
One month later, Armenian leaders received Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in Yerevan. Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturian visited Budapest in February this year. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan did the same in May.
